Called to the Vineyard, Changed by Grace
MASS “Circumdederunt me”
LESSON 1 Corinthians 9. 24-27; 10. 1-5
GOSPEL St Matthew 20 1-16
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved in Christ,
Before a single command to fast is laid upon us, before ashes touch our foreheads or disciplines are named, Holy Mother Church teaches us how to think. She places us, deliberately and soberly, at the threshold of Lent, and she asks us first to remember who we are.
We begin, as always, with humility: Ave Maria, gratia plena… For no Christian race is rightly begun without first acknowledging that grace precedes every step. And it is precisely this truth that Septuagesima restores to our sight.
What is Septuagesima? It is not Lent, but it is Lent’s antechamber. In the ancient Church, fasting once began seventy days before Easter, then sixty, then fifty, before settling finally at forty. The Church has preserved the memory of that earlier discipline, not by burdening us with obligation, but by giving us time — time to recollect ourselves, to sober ourselves, to prepare our souls for what lies ahead. Lent prepares us for Easter; Septuagesima prepares us for Lent.
Outwardly, much still appears unchanged. But the liturgy is already speaking. Yesterday, the Alleluia was buried — and it will not be heard again until the night of the Resurrection. Violet has returned. The Gloria has fallen silent. The Church is gently withdrawing consolations, not to punish us, but to awaken us. She is loosening our grip on what is familiar so that we may relearn how to desire what is eternal.
And so, even now, we are invited to examine ourselves. Not vaguely, not sentimentally, but honestly. To look squarely at our spiritual condition — and yes, even our bodily habits — because the Christian life is not lived in abstraction. Saint Paul makes this plain in today’s Epistle. He disciplines his body so that his interior life may be true. Grace does not abolish nature; it heals it, orders it, and demands cooperation from it.
Saint Paul gives us the image of the athlete — an image his hearers understood instinctively. Everyone runs the race, he says, but only one receives the prize. This is not cruelty; it is realism. Life itself confirms it. A race with no possibility of loss is not a race at all.
In the ancient games, the victor received a crown of laurel — green for a moment, withered soon after. A corruptible crown. Today we give medals of gold and silver, but still there is only one first place. And Saint Paul presses the comparison to its unavoidable conclusion: if men discipline themselves for a crown that fades, how much more should we discipline ourselves for a crown that does not — for eternal life with God.
Here the Apostle becomes unsettlingly frank. He speaks of restraint, of mastery, of chastising the body. And more than that, he speaks of fear — fear that even he, the Apostle to the Gentiles, might be cast away if he were to run carelessly. If Saint Paul trembles, who among us dares to grow comfortable?
He then turns our gaze to Israel in the wilderness. All were called. All saw the miracles. All passed through the sea. All ate the manna and drank from the rock — and that Rock was Christ. Yet most perished before the Promised Land. Grace received was not grace used. Privilege did not guarantee perseverance.
This warning is not written for their sake, but for ours.
We, too, have been given everything: baptismal rebirth, sacramental forgiveness, Eucharistic nourishment, divine revelation, apostolic doctrine, the help of angels, the intercession of the saints. We lack nothing — except, too often, the will to cooperate. God does not fail us; we grow negligent.
Yet the Church is not driving us toward despair. Quite the opposite. The sacraments remain fountains of mercy. A contrite heart is never rejected. The Father still watches the road, waiting for the prodigal to turn back. In penance and in the Holy Eucharist, we are given not only forgiveness, but strength — the power to begin again.
The Gospel sharpens the lesson — and here a vital distinction must be made. The master’s invitation is radically generous: he goes out again and again, calling men as they are, where they are, and at whatever hour of life they stand. No one is excluded by delay, failure, or prior idleness; the call itself is pure mercy. But the invitation is not yet the wage. The labourers are not summoned to remain in the marketplace but to enter the vineyard, and to enter the vineyard is already to accept labour, obedience, and change.
The silver penny of salvation is given equally, yet not indiscriminately: it is given at evening, after labour, not because God is unjust, but because salvation is not passive possession. Grace does not preserve man in a distortion of God’s likeness; it restores him to the truth of that image. God calls us as we are, but He saves us by making us who He conceived us to be — converting us from deformity to form, from self-will to obedience, from a likeness obscured to the living image of Christ.
This is where many falter. They presume. They take salvation for granted. They confuse mercy with indulgence, love with licence. They murmur like the labourers who resented generosity because they had forgotten gratitude.
But faith that does not act is dead. Charity that is not lived is empty. As Saint Paul teaches elsewhere, even faith that could move mountains is nothing without love — and love must be embodied, disciplined, and concrete.
This is why the Church gives us Lent — and why she gives us Septuagesima first. To interrupt our complacency. To reset our priorities. To call us back to seriousness without robbing us of hope.
Beloved, do not waste this season. Do not stand idle in the marketplace of your own soul. Do not assume there will be a later hour. The Master is calling now.
Let us not repeat the sin of the wilderness — the sin of murmuring, presumption, and delay. Instead, let us rise, labour, and cooperate with grace, so that it may change us, purify us, and make us fit for the presence of Him who is all-holy.
That we may one day receive the incorruptible crown
and dwell forever with God —
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
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